How A League Member Made Over $10k With Just ONE Email Campaign - Case Study With Aidan O'Sullivan

Want to find out how League member Aiden O'Sullivan made over $10,000 using our price increase email template? That's right - Aidan, who is an entertainer magician by trade and also supports other entertainers, implemented our Price Hike campaign and made £9,000 in just a few days. 

Want to know how email marketing changed his business and his life? 

If you're stuck in the hustle and the day-to-day grind and want a more predictable, automated way of getting leads and sales in your business, check this out! 

SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

(0:12) Join our FREE Facebook group.

(4:07) When did Aidan start using email marketing in his business?

(7:28) The first change Aidan made when he joined The League.

(9:34) What gap was Aidan trying to fix with email marketing?

(12:00) The first thing Aidan implemented when he started email marketing.

(14:02) Implementing systems to support his email campaigns.

(16:14) The amazing impact of running the Price Hike campaign.

(20:20) The ONE action that had the most impact on Aidan's business.

(21:48) Aidan's future plans with email marketing.

(24:23) Subject line of the week.

When did Aidan start using email marketing in his business?

Aidan started doing email marketing just over 18 months ago. Before that, he had an email list but had never done anything with it. In fact, at the time, Aidan thought that email marketing was spammy! Plus, being a magician and entertainer, it'd never occurred to him that he could use email as part of his marketing strategy as a tool to help him book more gigs. 

At that point, his biggest barrier to getting started with email marketing was working out what to say to his subscribers other than just asking people to book his gigs. He didn't know how to come up with interesting topics that wouldn't annoy people. He was far from thinking that people could actually enjoy receiving emails, so he was mainly using social media. 

The first change Aidan made when he joined The League

When he first joined The League, Aidan started sending emails out to his list regularly. The switch for him was understanding how he can provide entertainment to his audience even when he doesn't have anything to sell. And that's something Aidan didn't even think was possible - being in 'entertainment mode', wasn't something he associated with email marketing. But he managed to overcome the mindset hurdle that made him believe that emails were spammy and annoyed people. 

Once he joined our membership, Aidan realised that email marketing could be done in many different ways. And it's not about sending an email and hoping for the best! Now Aidan enjoys experimenting and playing with new ideas and seeing things work from different angles.

This is what got Aidan's attention and curiosity at first. He knew that email marketing was something he wanted to try and make work for his business - he appealed to Aidan as a project he could get involved with. 

What gap was Aidan trying to fix with email marketing? 

Before he started using email marketing, Aidan didn't have enough leads coming through in his business. He had people on his list who had opted in to hear from him, but no one was booking him. So at first, Aidan started exploring email marketing as a way to be more productive, rather than simply sitting back and hoping sales would come through. 

With a coaching side to his business, he wanted a way to make sales more consistently as he was relying heavily on social media and felt trapped in that rat race where he was plastering content on every platform and working over 100 hours every week just to make ends meet!

He was stuck in the hustle mentality and thought that was the only way to grow a new business. But that meant he nearly worked himself into the ground! And in retrospect, he now knows that mindset was ridiculous and a waste of his time and energy.

The emphasis was on working harder rather than smarter in a way that was sustainable. Instead of working so many hours, Aidan wished he'd just focused on what was working well in his business. 

The first thing Aidan implemented when he started email marketing

When he started sending emails out regularly, Aidan decided to focus on building campaigns, rather than sending individual emails and hoping to make some money.

Campaigns allowed him to build an argument (email after email) that helped him sell the master classes and one-off products he was offering at the time. Email templates and automation have a beginning, middle, and end and all lead to the direction of selling a particular offer. So rather than focusing on individual emails, Aidan started putting his efforts into tweaking and improving his campaigns. 

And the immediate effect of running more email sequences was that he started making more sales. Also, over time, his click- and open rates increased and stayed high. As an effect of implementing email campaigns, Aidan now has people paying attention to what's being offered and has been able to build a deeper relationship with his audience.

Implementing systems to support his email campaigns

The next thing Aidan did was to put the systems in place so that his email campaigns would run on autopilot. That way he wouldn't have to implement a new campaign every week, which is something Aidan did when he first joined The League. He'd launch a new campaign for a new product every week or a new campaign for the same product to try and sell it in a different way. It was exciting and fun, but it meant he kept changing things and moving away from what was working. So Aidan switched approaches.

Instead of creating more campaigns, he invested time in creating a system that would work like an asset for him - an investment that was reaping rewards. That meant he could do the things he enjoyed the most in his business without feeling guilty. As an entertainer, Aidan thrives on doing presentations and speaking to people in groups - it's about having a physical audience for him. And he can do that now because his sales are taken care of - they're automated and happen in the background. Thanks to email marketing automation, Aidan has more freedom and more revenue too! 

The amazing impact of running the Price Hike campaign 

The Price Hike campaign, which is the email template we put together for those who want to inform their audience that prices are going up, is the most successful campaign Aidan has implemented to date. When he used the campaign to tell his subscribers that the price of his membership was going up, he made £9,000 (over $10,000). And that's just in the space of a few days! Of course, it didn't feel like hustling. Because Aidan was able to use a framework to create the emails, schedule them, and let the automation run. 

This goes to show there's value in telling your audience that you're about to increase your prices. We see a lot of business owners who put their prices up without telling anyone! But warning your audience in advance allows those who haven't yet bought to go and buy before the price increase kicks in. It gives them an incentive. And for you, it's an opportunity to make more sales. 

How does Aidan feel about his email marketing now?

Now Aidan thinks that email marketing is fun and interesting – he loves it. Plus, he finds it reliable. Far from thinking that email marketing is only for people who have a huge list, now Aidan considers it the go-to activity to help him generate more leads and sales. He resorts to email first. And then, he'll look at what else will fit into that structure.

The ONE action that had the most impact on Aidan's business 

Aidan thinks that what’s key is to send more useful emails. You don't just want to send out an email once in a while with a long list of everything that’s happened. It’s about sending more emails with interesting stories and hooks. And this is what helped Aidan the most.

He also became more accountable – every day he sits and writes an email, and that builds up over time. In the space of 12-18 months, you’ll be able to write emails in a short amount of time. The emails are useful and practical, and people love them. And that’s been the biggest shift for Aidan.

Plus, this crosses over to social content too. Because being able to follow simple frameworks and structures to write good emails translates perfectly to what you post on social media. You follow the same approach, which makes posting on social media quicker and more useful to your audience. 

Aidan’s future plans with email marketing

At the moment, Aidan is focusing on doing more of what works and putting the systems in place to take care of the rest, so he can focus on what he enjoys while leads and sales are happening without him being actively involved. His main objective is to do as much as possible to avoid ever going anywhere near massive volumes of working hours.

While he’s not sure exactly where he’s headed with email marketing, for Aidan it’s definitely about building systems and being able to rely on the automated element to take care of what’s most time-consuming.

Want to join The League?

If you want to know more about the campaign Aidan used to make £9,000 (over $10,000) in a few days, check out The League. We have more than 30 email sequences that are psychologically stacked to move people to understand, want, and buy your products and services.

Subject line of the week

This week’s subject line is “What was she TALKING about?” followed by the mind-blown emoji. The email was telling an interesting story about Kennedy, who got into a conversation with a waitress on his way to London, and she was convinced something had happened, but it hadn't.

This subject line worked because it triggers lots of curiosity. People want to know who the person is and what she was talking about. So there are lots of questions being asked. Try it out!

Useful Episode Resources

Related episodes

How Sheila Went from the Starting Blocks to Total Clarity – an Email Marketing Case Study.

How Cody Burch Increased Sales by Exactly 1,000% in 1 Month with Just 10 Emails.

And How Dan Greef Made £9k in just 1 Day, Sending Simple Emails.

FREE list of the top 10 books to improve your email marketing

If you want to write better emails, come up with better content, and move your readers to click and buy, here's how. We put together this list of our Top 10 most highly recommended books that will improve all areas of your email marketing (including some underground treasures that we happened upon, which have been game-changing for us). Grab your FREE list here. 

Join our FREE Facebook group

If you want to chat about how you can maximise the value of your email list and make more money from every subscriber, we can help! We know your business is different, so come and hang out in our FREE Facebook group, the Email Marketing Show Community for Course Creators and Coaches. We share a lot of training and resources, and you can talk about what you're up to.

Try ResponseSuite for $1

This week's episode is sponsored by ResponseSuite.com, the survey quiz and application form tool that we created specifically for small businesses like you to integrate with your marketing systems to segment your subscribers and make more sales. Try it out for 14 days for just $1.

Join The League Membership

Not sick of us yet? Every day we hang out in our amazing community of Email Marketing Heroes. We share all of our training and campaigns and a whole bunch of other stuff. If you're looking to learn how to use psychology-driven marketing to level up your email campaigns, come and check out The League Membership. It's the number one place to hang out and grow your email marketing. Best news yet? You can apply everything we talk about in this show.

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